


Badlands

by SaturnChild



Series: SaturnChild's Frattweek4 [4]
Category: Daredevil (TV), The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Abandonment Issues, Angry Frank Castle, Blood and Injury, Concussions, Denial, Developing Relationship, Dissociation, Eating Disorders, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Frank Castle Angst, Frank Castle has PTSD, Gunshot Wounds, Hurt Frank Castle, Hurt Matt Murdock, M/M, Matt being a good guy, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Slash, Prompt: Park, References to Depression, Trauma, Trauma Recovery, anger issues, depressed matt murdock, frattweek4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-11
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-18 01:08:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29360025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaturnChild/pseuds/SaturnChild
Summary: The carousel song echoes in his head in a loop. Some days, it’s joined by Russo’s screams of pain and anguish as he destroyed his face against broken mirror. Other, it’s his babies screams of fright as the bullets ripped through their bodies. And most often then not, it’s joined by their laughter, stuck in time. Forever there, in that one moment.Other days, it’s just Frank, alone in the bloodbath. The screams and the laughter gone. Those are the days he wonders back to the park, to the carousel where it all ended and sits there until dawn. Until everything inside is wrung out and empty.Somehow, Red keeps finding him on those days.
Relationships: Frank Castle & Karen Page, Frank Castle & Matt Murdock, Frank Castle/Matt Murdock
Series: SaturnChild's Frattweek4 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2150229
Comments: 2
Kudos: 43





	Badlands

**Author's Note:**

> Frankie being angsty, Matty being angsty while trying to be helpful, Karen meddling because they're both oblivious, ft. coffee.   
> Well hello, we reach day four of Frattweek! I was super excited about today's prompt, so I hope you guys like it.  
> Trigger warnings for:  
> Flashbacks, violence, injury, depression, eating disorders, anger issues.

He’s sitting in the bench by the carousel again. 

Frank doesn’t even remember when or how he got there. Just, when things get loud in his head, when the song just  _ won’t stop,  _ and their laughter echoes until they fade, he always finds himself back here. Where he died and crawled out of hell to bring down his family’s murderers back underground with him. 

And he did. He enacted his own brand of justice. He bled all over the earth, almost died once and twice more. But this empty shell of a body stayed, like a grim reaper, condemned to walk the land of the living when he’s nothing but bones. 

Red finds him, somehow. He hasn’t seen him in more than a year, only heard of him through Karen, when he had been laying in that hospital bed, convinced his bullets, his  _ bullshit  _ had killed those three women in Billy’s warehouse. She had been vague on her accountings, but apparently, he wasn’t in the picture for her and Nelson anymore.

His eyes, even as damn tired as he is, are quick to find blood in Red’s clothing. He’s wearing his suit and tie, red glasses in place, when he sits with a small, raspy groan of pain by his side. 

Frank has no energy to roll his eyes, but he almost feels like doing it mentally. Leave it to altar boy to come check on someone when he’s covered in blood.

He has no wish to talk, however. No wish to open his heart to this man, and Matthew seems to notice it, somehow, for he just sits and stays. A quiet presence by his side. Frank still feels out of his body, floating somewhere in the space between Red’s bloodied hands and his own, recently cleaned ones. It makes no difference.

His hands will always be bloody.

Suddenly, he feels his mind connect violently with his body. And he wants to scream. Scream at Murdock to go away, get out of his way, leave him to rot in the silence. It’ll always be silent now. Their laughter fades a little more everyday. He can’t remember if Lisa’s eyes were deep brown like his own or if they were hazel like her mother’s. He can’t remember if Frankie’s freckles stopped by his face, or if his pale arms were full of them too.

He can’t muster the energy to scream. So he stays quiet for long minutes to come.

“What’s with the blood?” he can’t feel his numb lips as they move and form words, voice as wretched and gruff as always. Lisa liked when he made impressions of the grizzly bears in that book of hers. 

_ One batch, two batch, penny and dime. _

_ Papa bear is a baker, and so am I. _

He can’t remember the rest. It burned to flames with their house. 

“I’m a wanted man, now” answers Murdock, red glasses glinting in the few streetlights nearby. 

“Hardly any news” he turns his head towards Castle, as if calculating his words, pondering what to say.

“Matt Murdock, not the Devil” that catches Frank off guard, although he has no disposition to react with surprise or confusion. 

“Whaddya do?” 

“Fisk. He’s trying to frame me. For things I did and didn’t do” Frank nods slowly, the will to talk vanishing slightly. Matt doesn’t pressure or try to make him speak, becoming a quiet presence once more.

_ I’ll read it to you tomorrow.  _

It echoes in his head too. The promises he made, the things he had said, things he’d never be able to give them. He had promised to take them to Disneyland once. He promised to save money to give them the best trip they could ask for. Make sure to find places with those scented, fancy candles Maria liked so much. 

_ I’ll read it to you tomorrow baby, I promise. _

The gunshot, sometimes, is the louder. Echoing and echoing non-stop. Sometimes, it mixes with the ones he fired himself. The ones he fired in the field, in another lifetime. By Curt’s and Billy’s side. The ones he fired with the skull emblazoned in his chest, a  _ memento mori. _

His eyes catch sight of a new, slowly growing patch of blood in Murdock’s once pristine white shirt. He winces slightly and presses his hand against the wound in his chest, but doesn’t say or do anything otherwise.

Why the hell is he here? He’s not trying to get anything from Frank, from what he can tell. And they haven’t seen each other for a long time, it’s not like they’re pals. He clearly didn’t came to give him a sermon on Frank’s vigilante work, otherwise he’d be fuming by his ears and talking like a priest already. 

The patch is still wet and growing slowly.

“You’re hurt” Matthew nods slowly, a surprised expression on his face, as if he didn’t expect Frank to mention it.

“My copycat’s work. Also Fisk’s little right hand” he goes quiet then. Making no move to stand up and go patch himself up. He just stays. Sitting there like a statue.

“What are you doing here?” Red’s face finally turns towards his. Although it probably doesn’t make much difference to the blind man.

“You were sitting alone and you smelled... off” Frank raises his eyebrows at that, considering what he could possibly mean by smelled off. He has no time to ask, however “just... know it’s hard. S’easy to push everyone away but... I guess it’s what scares us most too. Even when it’s something you choose, being alone is...” his voice is tiny by then, as if admitting a dirty secret to his priest, never finishing the thought.

Frank, however, huffs out a blow of air, slightly amused. Very much uncomfortable too, for his words hit close to home. It remembers of someone telling him the same things, not too long ago.

_ I look at you and all I see is the endless, echoing loneliness. _

“You thought I was.. what- scared? Or... or what? Lonely? Came to play good Samaritan?” Frank scoffs and Matt frowns at that, brows furrowing close to his red glasses, a smear of blood in his cheek flaking already. 

“Just seemed wrong to leave you alone” the honesty in his voice is grating, Frank suddenly wants to punch him. Problem is, Red will probably get knocked out and bleed out in the park. And Frank can be as angry as he wants, but he doesn’t kill the good guys. Even the deeply irritating ones.

“Haven’t seen in for a year and you still trying to save every goddamn broken soul you meet, Murdock?” his voice is scornful and mocking and it clearly hurts something in the younger man. His expression doesn’t last long, fading to a passive stance. 

“No one deserves to be alone when they’re hurting, Frank” it’s a mutter and almost a whisper too, but they’re the only ones in the park and his voice is clear to Castle’s ears. His next scoff is derisive but still, fearful in a way. Red’s doing that thing he seems to be able to see right through you with his freaky senses. And Frank doesn’t want to be seen, not now. Or maybe is just too afraid to.

“Take care and... If you could call Karen, check on her...”

“Do it yourself”

Matthew smiles before leaving. It’s a sad, broken thing. It echoes in Frank’s mind too. Together with all the things he’s said.

Frank sees it on TV, a week later. Wilson Fisk being transported to supermax, with no chance of parole or reduction of sentence or time served. He never gets there, however. Frank has unfinished business. 

He shoots him in the guts and he shoots him in face, and he watches him bleed for a second before he leaves the car. When the officers finally come to, Fisk has made a pool of blood underneath his corpse.

Frank doesn’t feel anything as he takes his van and comes back to his safehouse in Hell’s Kitchen. It’s the furthest one from his latest crime scene and the only one close with hot water and a functional sink. He washes his hands and he puts his weapons away. 

It takes all of his energy to walk back to the couch and sit still. Until night falls and the only light in the apartment comes from the kitchen. 

Today, there's no laughter (he’s afraid, sometimes, that one day he’ll just stop hearing it and forget how it sounded. How Frankie, sometimes, squealed before dissolving into chuckles and giggles. How Lisa’s slightly separated front teeth would make him smile fondly).

But there are screams. And the goddamn song. The feeling of warmth and sunlight in the park, the smell of grass. 

The guns.

His window opens from the outside and he has his handgun trained on the fucker's head before they can move or breathe. Instinct, it seems will always make his body act faster than his mind can process.

His eyes finally recognize a cloth covered face and those lips he remembers snarling like a wounded animal, talking about redemption bullshit and whatever the fuck. They are pink and soft looking as they keep quiet, hands slowing raising to the sides of his head. Relaxed.

Frank notes his hands then. They feel tacky, even after he’s washed all the blood out. It’s only fitting, he thinks, that someday the feel and texture of it wouldn’t leave. The same hands that once held his baby girl in the air and spun with her around. The same hands that played with Frankie’s hair, showed him how to groom. Wash, dry. 

At the time, every moment was a gift. Now, he feels horror prickle at his skin at the thought of how he let his bloody,  _ bloody  _ hand anywhere near his babies.

The song is still there, echoing like a background ambience sound. It’s dissonant and jarring and it won’t  _ stop.  _

He sits back down on the couch, completely ignoring Red as he moves inside the safe house. Matt walks inside the kitchen as if he owns the place, after studying Frank with clever, sightless eyes and nodding to himself. He hears the only cooking pot he owns being put to use, and he can’t bring himself to try and stop him. 

Murdock starts talking then. As Frank’s eyes zero in on the black mask forgotten at his coffee table. He babbles steadily about an immigration case, a stray cat with three legs that adopted their firm and keeps coming back for food, a new coffee shop by his building that smells of milk and cookies from eight in the morning to midnight. 

When he finally stops talking, the smells of pasta and red sauce is floating around the place. He comes to the living room with a single plate and puts it in Frank’s hands. 

It’s warm, and it smells just like how his Ma used to make him on Friday nights, after school practice. Spaghetti. His kids never liked it. They liked mac ‘n cheese and the dinosaur shaped ones with alfredo sauce. And nuggets. They were obsessed with chicken nuggets.

The exhaustion fades away as quickly as it had overcome him. Fury rising inside his chest as he glares at Murdock’s still figure. He’s brimming with anger, for some reason. It’s illogical and irrational, but it almost feels like Red is mocking him. And if not mocking,  _ pitying,  _ which is just worse.

His freaky senses must detect it for his muscles start tensing and his uncovered, sightless eyes shift. It comes as a background note that it’s the first time he had seen Red’s eyes and they are  _ hazel green.  _ Milky, unseeing, and unnerving. Unnerving for they just hold honesty and it’s grating. Infuriating and almost offensive.

“What the hell do you thing you’re doing?”

“Sitting” when Frank’s annoyed silence continues, he sighs “your stomach was making sounds, you didn’t eat today yet”

It’s leaves Frank angrier that this asshole had noticed it, and that Frank didn’t even remember not eating. Didn’t remember showering or drinking any water. 

“It’s none of your goddamn business. Do I look like I’m in need of your babysitting, Red? You, of all people?” Matt swallows hard, and it sounds more tired than nervous or cross. His head turns away then.

“I don't know what you need frank. I don't know if I can give it to you. I'm here because you didn't eat and you should, and I can cook. So stop being so goddamn stubborn and eat the fucking spaghetti” Matt motions to get up then, clearly intending to leave, but he stops at Frank’s jeering scoff, who advances and takes him forcefully by the collar of his black shirt.

“If I wanna starve to death, that’s none of your goddamn business, you hear me? You keep up with this patronizing bullshit and next time I shoot you I won’t miss, got it?” 

Matthew slowly nods, unseeing eyes lost somewhere to Frank’s shoulders. He doesn’t look particularly scared but disappointed, sad. With that sad kicked puppy thing his face did.

“You keep your bullshit out of my way”

“Yeah, Frank. I got it” he shakes his head, taking Frank’s wrist and pulling it away from himself. Red’s hands are cold and thin against his own big ones, and he steps away. His hands find the black mask in Castle’s coffee table and takes it. Before leaving, his curious fingertips trace paper. The notebook Frank had written some of the routes he could go through to catch onto Fisk faster and more efficiently. He takes the pencil and writes something on it.

A phone number.

“Not patronizing you.. just in case you need anythi-“

“Fuck off, Murdock” 

He nods solemnly and disappears through the window like a shadow.

He gets shot in the leg, like an asshole. It probably went clean through but it doesn’t make walking back to his van any easier. He parked it far away from the op’s location, it’s tactical, less tracks to follow, less problems that can be dropped off on his doorstep.

He’s tired and walking gets excruciating with every second he keeps going, but Frank can do it. He’s got through worse. So he keeps going. One leg useless as the other keeps up the good work, practically holding up his whole weight on it by it’s own.

There’s less scumbags in these streets tonight so, that’s good. Worth the pain.

He passes by the Central Park. Deliriously, Frank things that if he had to choose a place to bleed out and die, this would be it. Right where they took his babies and his wife away from him. 

It doesn’t matter that he doesn’t believe in God or heaven and hell anymore, the grown catholic kid inside of him keeps insisting that, if there is any of this shit, he most certainly will not end up where his family is. 

Frank just thinks this is a good place to die. Closer to his baby girl and his baby boy than he’ll ever be again. 

He keeps walking though. Knows there are kids and families who come to the park, early in the morning and he doesn’t want them scared or traumatized by his dead body. So Frank keeps walking. Keeps ignoring the pain, the blood loss, the fatigue and the grief. He wonders if it will ever go away, if it’ll ever get easier.

“Frank?”

“ _ Jesus Christ”  _ there’s no peace, huh? He wonders to himself if is there any way he paid his penance in this Earth already. Why now, of all times? When all he wants is lick his own wounds in piece, pretend he’s not alive in a world where his kids aren’t? “Thought I told you to fuck off. You deaf as well as blind?” he turns around to find his tormenters cloth-covered face, only to find hazel green, concerned eyes.

He’s not wearing his lawyer’s or daredevil’s clothes today. Jacket, jeans, a beanie. He’s been doing his little recon’s, Frank reckons. 

“You’d be shit out of luck if I was” his voice is firm and leaves no place for discussion, tough luck Frank’s a contrary son of a bitch. “Your leg has seen better days” he comments, clearly ignoring the jab at his disability. Which is really low for Frank, he knows, he’s just too pissed off to care. Murdock takes him off his hinges.

The redhead motions to come closer to help, only to be pushed away quickly, almost losing his balance. Frank grunts at the pain that spreads across his thigh with that. But the effort is worth it.

“Can’t take a goddamn walk without you breathing down my neck-” he grunts out, limping his way to the alleyway, so he can take the shortcut back to the street he parked his van. 

“Come on Frank, I won’t stay. Just let me get you home”

“No, you stay away from me!” Castle bellows forcefully, furious eyes glaring down Red’s smaller figure. He’s angry again. He doesn’t even know why at this point. Maybe it’s that sad kicked puppy face again. Like someone took away his toys. Well, Frank’s not a fucking toy and he does not need any help, thank you. 

And he’s mad too. He’s pissed. Because Red keeps trying to help and take care of him, and he doesn’t want that. He wants to feel the pain, let it burn right through him. Leave nothing behind but a hollow husk.

“Frank...” Matt speaks with a sigh in his voice, as if tired to deal with a pesky, unreasonable child. It makes his temper rise just  _ that bit more,  _ and when he comes to touch his shoulder and try to help him walk again, Frank uses all the momentum he has to turn towards him and punch him square in the nose.

Surprisingly, Murdock doesn’t notice it coming, staggering back with the force of the hit and his nose promptly starts bleeding, covering his lips in red tint. 

“You’re a goddamn moron, you know that?” the lawyer calls out, eyes wide and frustrated, angered.  _ Good,  _ that’s what Frank wants, a good  _ fight. _

“Yeah, Red? I am not the one in the Halloween pajamas, now, am I?” 

“You’re hurt, asshole, I’m not gonna fight you”

“Too bad” 

Frank pounces again, pure adrenaline making the pain manageable and easy to ignore. But Matt dodges the second time, and the third. Not making any move to try and hit him back.

“Come on, Frank! I just want to help!” 

“Then you take your scrappy charity somewhere else, altar boy! I’ve got no time for your shit, for that selfless act of yours, who you tryna fool, Red? Your priest? Am I the good deed of the month, is that it?” maybe it’s unfair, Matthew is a good guy, but he’s so goddamn  _ pissed,  _ and he won’t leave him alone, and he gets pass his defenses so  _ easily,  _ and the damn song just plays on repeat, it just keeps playing and it never  _ stops- _

He decks him again, missing the one to his face but another one hits him right between the ribs and Murdock groans in pain and holds them as he steps back. Probably had been fractured already.

“You know that’s not true-“

“You’re goddamn hypocrite it’s what you are, red” 

_ Why aren’t you fighting back? _

“What the hell, Frank?” 

He wants to scream in his face. Why is he acting frustrated instead of pissed off? Why can’t Frank wipe that pitiful, sad look from those pitiful sad eyes of his? Replace it with fury, with the devil’s determined, focused rage. Why does he keep taking the hits? 

Fight back.

“Keep this good guy act, busting my balls but you- your hands are bloody too. How sure can you be you didn’t kill anyone, huh? Maybe you don’t set out to kill, but you hit ‘em hard, red”

Murdock freezes completely then, eyes staring empty to somewhere close to Frank’s knees. It gives him the chance to attack, hitting him in the face again. Good. Hitting is  _ good. _ They both know how to do that. Frank knows how to patch himself back up from a fight.

It’s the other stuff he doesn’t know how to come back from. The one that hurts deep, keep impressions in his brains, and echoes and memories, make him feel like he won’t ever recover. Like his heart and guts were pulled apart from his body. That’s the stuff he doesn’t know how to heal from.

“You’re...” Matt starts, bloody lips spitting reddish saliva on the floor. There’s a bruise already forming on his cheek. And it suddenly just makes Frank feels nauseous. It servers to get his blood pumping faster, and maybe it speaks of his nature that his first instinct is prepare for another punch. “you’re bleeding too much. You’re going to pass out”

“Fuck you”

Red shakes his head in tired admonishment and Frank takes the chance to lounge again, punching him on the other side of his ribs. Not the one he knows now are fractured. His body does it instinctively, and that makes him roar angrily in return. 

He can’t  _ care.  _ Not about  _ him. _

Not about someone who chases death every single day.

“Come on!” Frank roars, pushing him by his shoulders and Matt holds himself steady, although he takes a step back from the force of it. “You’re just gonna take a beating, Red?! That what you gonna do?!” 

“I’m not fighting a guy with a hole in his leg. I’m not a coward” he answers levelly, brows furrowed, snarling slightly and yet, conveying too much fucking honesty for the moment. 

“You’re a pussy is what you are” and he tackles the devil to the ground. Matt’s head hit the concrete with a loud, muffled thud and he finally makes a sound. Not the one Frank had been hoping for: from anger, rage or frustration. This one is a surprised whimper, a yelp of pain.

No.  _ No no no. _

_ Why didn’t you fight back? Why didn’t you stop me? _

“Yeah Frank” his voice is a trembling whisper now, he’s clearly disoriented from the way he blinks, hands scrambling to feel the concrete underneath him. But he’s finally had enough, and it’s obvious from how his posture completely changes. He spits blood in the ground, Frank idly thinks he probably bit his tongue.

All the energy leves his body then. He just feels hollow, nauseated. 

“You’re right. Is that what you wanna hear? I can’t finish the job. I’m a half-measure, a fucking hypocrite. Does that make you happy? I can’t bring myself to do it, to kill, I guess I’m just not like you. I guess I’m just weak like that” 

Matt motions to stand up and Frank just leaves his place straddling his body, letting him go. He feels heavy all over now. Like his bones are made of led. His eyes find Matthew’s, though. Finding him swaying and putting his fingertips to the back of his head.

They come back bloodied, and that prompts Castle to stand up urgently, not knowing what to do. For the first time since he met him, he looks scared for a moment, bloody hand coming to cover a ear while the other immediately reaches for the wall for support. Like he can’t orientate himself. Like he can’t  _ see _ the way he usually does.

“Red”

Matthew immediately shakes his head.

“You do what you want, Frank. Just don’t bleed out on the street” he walks always unsteadily, hands reaching out to find things around him in a way he had never seen him do. He clearly sways from time to time, but he keeps going. Because he’s like Frank, in that aspect. He never knows when to stop, so he keeps pushing himself. Step after step.

It downs on him he never once tried to hit him back, to do anything to hurt him, or even take advantage of his weakened state. He just kept protecting himself with sad, sad eyes.

Castle hadn’t known much about Midland Circle. Only that it had collapsed and nobody knew why. The police kept their mouths shut, no report came out. He hadn’t know, for example, that Daredevil was declared dead the same day and that rumor had it, he had been underneath the collapsed building with other supers, and he was the only one who wasn’t able to come out.

Matt Murdock’s disappearance documents were filled but never filed. Someone, probably Nelson or Karen, had called in a favor so they wouldn’t put it on the system. 

It’s Karen who tells him, after asking to meet him one day. She tells him about everything that went down with Fisk, how they and even Murdock thought he was dead for months. How he crawled out of under the collapsed building on his own and was taken to the orphanage were he grew up to be put back together by nuns.

One who, apparently, had been his long believed dead mother. Who had been there to raise him, and never once told him the truth.

Shit.

She told him about how every move Matt tried to make, he’d been stopped or viciously beaten down by Fisk and his men. How he lost hope time and time again, until he was almost constantly in a dissociative state, specially when close to Nelson and Karen. She told him how long it took for him to get better, but how things were still rough. 

Karen also gave him a very pointed look, when she told him he only started getting better and eating more when Matt let them in. 

He had listened in silence, and never once told her about how he came to see him by the carousel, months ago. How he talked about nobody deserving to be alone when they were hurting. It wasn’t pity or a misplaced sense of duty, Murdock had been feeling when trying to help the goddamn punisher.

It had been sympathy. He had been - and still was slowly getting out from - the same place as him.

He thinks about that, few days after he met her (she didn’t mention them fighting, but had mentioned vaguely something about Matt not doing his rounds as the devil that week, but still showed up beaten to hell a few days ago, Frank kept quiet).

He’s coming back from his day job to his nearest safe house in the Kitchen when he sees a small pool of blood by the nearest alleyway. He never takes his gun to the construction site, but he takes his ka-bar and his fingers immediately close around the handle.

Turns out, he didn’t need to. 

Red is a mess, as the last time he saw him, not much more than a week ago. His nose and mouth are bleeding steadily, like last time, his dark shirt soaked wet and a hand pressing some hidden wound on his stomach, fingers bloody and knuckles busted. 

Seeing him bloody makes him nauseous again. Makes him remember a sunny day with a lot of blood, not a long time ago. Bullets ripping through their bodies, a song playing without stop, screams. 

Red meat spilling out of his baby girl’s head. 

There’s blood in the wall, a bullet graze by the side of his head. Exactly like one Frank had to patch on himself not too long ago. Given to him by Billy, the day he found out of his betrayal. 

He looks lost and dizzy, clearly out of it. He almost considers walking past him, doesn’t think Red must want anything to do with him after he beat the shit out of him and probably gave him a concussion a week ago. He’s been a dick to him lately. To a man offering help.

He sighs in annoyance.

“You’re a moron, you know that Red?” it’s almost an echo from another day.

“So I’m told” he sassily replies, voice fatigued. He coughs, bloody lips spilling more red liquid to his chin. He’s pale. Almost scarily so. Eerily white against the streetlights.

“Stop leaving your DNA all over the place”

“There’s a piece of my DNA everywhere in Hell’s Kitchen, Frank. I’ve been counting”

“Of course you have, shoulda expected that of you” he crouches by his side, taking a look at the graze. It’s not too deep. But it clearly shot his fancy ears to hell, one ear has a dry blood track coming out of it.

“Should’ve lower’d your expectations accordingly, I can’t rem’mber half the ones I counted while getting the shit kicked outta me”

“Shut the hell up, Murdock” his voice has no venom in it, not this time, as he puts Murdock’s arm against his shoulders and a hand pulling him close by his waist, helping him stand up. He does so with a groan, hand clenching against whatever wound is in his belly. 

He can feel his ribs through his shirt. He’s way skinnier than when they first met. It’s almost too easy to pull him up.

_ No one deserves to be alone when they’re hurting, Frank. _

Fuck, Red. You were just as lost, huh?

“You taking me home, Frank?”

“My safe house” he grunts out, helping him walk, pissed that it’s so fucking easy to manhandle him to a better position. Should have shoved that damn spaghetti down his throat the time he had the chance. 

In minutes that feel way longer while he fumes silently in his head, they arrive at Frank’s safe house. It’s the one he spends most time on, so he has a great deal of medical supplies. It’s on the 4th floor however, and Matt’s gonna have to deal with it because Frank ain’t carrying him. 

He doesn’t complain, bleeding like a fucking gory fountain as he is, but he keeps pushing his body to walk up the stairs. And if Frank takes a bit more of his weight every time he pushes himself harder, Murdock is too out of it to notice anyway. 

When he opens the door, he immediately leads Red to the couch, not caring about the blood. Castle comes back only to close the door, putting all the bolts in place. Walking fast towards his bathroom to get some clean water, his med kit and salt. He mixes the salt with some of the water, brings some rags and a bottle of whiskey. Murdock’s gonna need it.

As soon as he gets back in the living room, he crouches in front of Red, who’s slumped like a fainting damsel. He has already pulled the mask off his face, and seeing those doe eyes of his with a bloody face makes the nausea come back strong.

_ Not him. Don’t get attached to him, Castle. Put yourself together. _

“Wanna tell me what went wrong?” there’s a thick lump of distress in his throat that he won’t recognize so he speaks instead. If it sounds raspier than usual, Mat- Murdock probably won’t notice.

He tries to sound nonchalant, undemanding. Not knowing if Red will take kindly to it if he sounds all interested now after acting like a major asshole after all the other times they met. He shouldn’t care, not really, about how he got hurt. But he remembers the news about the collapsed building, Karen talking about how he crawled out of it half-dead, the dissociative episodes and how thinner Red is now. 

And how sad too, that he feels some kind of affinity with the big bad punisher. They do say misery loves company.

He sighs, suddenly weary and exhausted. Castle just wants peace. He knows he ain’t ever gonna get it. Wouldn’t know what to do with it in his dirty, stained hands.

“I got emotional” Red muttered, he’s a bit winded still from all the walking, which is worrying all on it’s own, he’s in worse shape than he thought, already slurring his words. Frank comes closer, fingertips feeling around from the bullet graze in the side of his head, still bleeding all over his neck and shoulder, and then for the concussion from a week ago. 

There’s still a small, tiny bump. The gash scabbed over, although the scar tissue is still thinner than the skin around. He tries not to linger on the texture of his red hair. Soft, even drenched with blood and sweat.

“Stick always said it would get me killed... Shoulda listened” he sighs wistfully. Frank grunts in answer, unless he got it wrong, Stick is someone’s nickname. If it isn’t and Red’s talking about sticks telling him things, he hit his head harder than he thought that day.

“Take off your shirt, lemme see it” he grouses, giving Red a piece of cloth and guiding his hand towards it by his wrist “Put that in your head” he does, without a peep. Even when Frank knows the pressure ought to hurt and he probably already has a massive headache. Kid’s a tough son of a bitch, he gives him that.

“You don’ have to” he tries, tone gentle and yet slurring. He puts his cold, trembling hands on top of Frank’s. He feels it tingle with the touch, that ghost of affection he doesn’t know how to take anymore. He pulls his hand away slowly, pretending to take something from the kit by his side.

“You gonna make me say again, sunshine?” the pet name slips and he almost curses himself. It was supposed to be mocking. Red probably took it this way.

Right?

“Well, since you’re feeling nice” he concedes, pulling the shirt up by the hem and getting stuck on it like a clumsy asshole. He doesn’t even try to get out, mumbles a little  _ Frank,  _ asking for help. He curses something under his breath, coming closer to help him take it off. The shirt is thin and soaked in blood and Red doesn’t even wear a vest.

He’s about to freak out. 

“Oh, what the fuc- you didn’t tell me you’ve been shot twice!” 

“Well, mister, you didn’ ask..” he’s slurring and smiling like a deranged, fatigued lunatic. It’s hysterical, Frank wants to punch him, wants to hide him away from the world against his chest. He pulls the slim man by his shoulders, his head burying against Frank’s hard abdomen as he tries to find an exit wound. 

He finds one,  _ thank god,  _ and the other is a graze, bullet woven in meat and muscle, it will be easy to pull out.

What the  _ hell _ , Red’s been walking with three bullet wounds,  _ including one to the head,  _ for twenty minutes and didn’t complain  _ once.  _ It just pisses him off that he’s so easy to... dismiss himself, and that he gives Frank so many fucking reasons to have a renewed appreciation of him.

He sits back in front of him in the sturdy coffee table and starts cleaning the wounds. 

“I don’t even know how you stay alive by this point” he grumbles, sincerely shocked. Matthew hisses from the pain but doesn’t complain otherwise. Because  _ of course he doesn’t.  _ Instead, he smiles queasily to the general direction of Frank’s face. His fancy senses clearly not back online yet.

“You blew yourself up in a boat, Frank” he giggles drunkly, and it is kinda funny that Castle is the one telling him that. “You died and came back at least thrice-” he giggles again. Little shit.

He hopes this asshole won’t need a transfusion. Frank doesn’t have what he needs here, and he ain’t raiding a hospital in a Friday night.

The ex-marine finishes stitching up the bullet hole on his back and belly, taking what supplies he needs to take the bullet out of his side. It’s easier than it should be, and Matt almost doesn’t react besides making faces and hissing this one time. And then, he’s all drained and slumping again.

He takes a look at Murdock, then. The nose and mouth that stopped bleeding, the blood already dried on his temple too. He’s so at ease in Frank’s presence. Comfortable being himself. Not the mask of the blind, helpless lawyer. Or the mask of the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen. 

Just Matt. A blind lawyer with fancy-ass senses who punches asshole and delivers justice in the dead of night. Matt who takes an awfully amount of pain quietly, who comes back from hell time and time again and just keeps being so inherently  _ good and caring.  _

He wants to touch him them. Feel his auburn hair once more. 

He doesn’t. He can’t, not yet.

There’s something about it that feels like taking this huge, huge step. Accepting something new, leaving his ghosts behind. It scared him. Matthew felt like the end of the gunfire after a fight, that silence Frank never got back from. Like he could reconcile the two of them. Like they could actually  _ grow  _ after all the shit that’s happened to the both of them.

It feels dangerous. Painful.

It’s maybe the only thing he has wanted for himself in a long time. 

He thinks of Karen. How she always saw right through him and put his head straight on it’s right place. He wonders what would she see now, if she saw him and Red.

“You talked to Karen?” he has a half a mind to call Red out on mind-reading, even if he’s sure he can’t do that. “She came back to the office... three days ago.. she smelled like you”

“You smell people a lot, Red? Gonna get you in trouble” for his surprise, it makes Murdock snort and chuckle.

Huh.

“I can’t help it, ya know?” 

Yeah. Frank did.

“You two good now?” 

“Yeah. They've forgiven me” Frank had been talking about Karen and Matt and their  _ unresolved swirl _ of things, but apparently he was thinking of Nelson and her. “I try really hard you know? But I just keep waiting... waiting everyday”

“Waiting what?” he keeps Red talking as he finishes the stitches on his side and dresses both gunshot wounds on his belly. He tries not to look at his exposed ribs.

“For them to leave ‘gain, see?” that gives Frank a pause, putting the dressing’s packaging aside, eyes staring into Red’s sightless, milky ones. He squints at him when he sees that resigned, sad expression. “Foggy, Karen and Maggie... they’ll leave again someday.. and I’m not ready...” he mumbles, eyes starting to blink slower.

The marine sighs, Matthew is spilling his heart out and he isn’t sure he remembers how to comfort someone. It makes the other man too real, palpable, like he could reach out and just  _ touch him.  _ Accept him, feel his soft hair, his warmth and whatever it its that he has been offering Frank. Let him wreak havoc in his moldy heart.

He starts cleaning the wound in his head, then. 

“You still didn’t tell me what went wrong”

Safe subject. Nice save, Castle, you goddamn coward. 

Red blinks slowly. He’s almost asleep by this point. 

Probably, he hopes he’s not fainting from blood loss. Not now, of all times. 

“They had the kid’s dad... a little boy. They were going to kill them... It reminded of dad... I got emotional. Emotions and attatchments get me hurt, get me killed” the last part is said in the most monotonous voice Frank had ever heard from Red. The kind of voice he had heard in his platoon, when marines repeated orders from their CO’s. A voice from someone that listened to the same phrase over and over again. 

He hums in assent. Finishes stitching the wound to Matthew’s head, and gives him some of the wet rags.

“Wipe yourself up and get some sleep. You look like shit” Matt smiles a sassy thing.

“Aw, you flatterer, you” Frank snorts, and almost smiles, which in turn makes him frown in confusion. 

Goddamn it, Murdock.

He’s cleaning up the place, putting away his medical kit when he hears his voice again. A mumble of someone halfway to sleep. The wet rags forgotten by the coffee table where Frank had been sitting a while ago.

“You hear them too, don’t you?” Frank grunts, confused at what he means, and Matt only sighs, cozying up to the stained couch. “You’re not alone y’ know? I hear my ghosts too”

He drifts off to sleep easily. Frank takes hours to finally be able to do the same.

When he wakes up, Murdock is gone. He tells himself it’s for the best, although it feels strangely empty inside his safe house. 

There is, however, hot take-out coffee and homemade pancakes in a plate. The take-out coffee has the Starbucks logo and a note written ”nice asshole” with a childish handwriting.

He actually laughs, that morning. No one is there to witness, so he doesn’t stop himself.

His feet carry him to the park almost everyday after his job on the construction site. Not by the carousel, that’s reserved for the days he can’t hear anything but his ghosts, as Red would put it.

It's been happening a lot lately. And most often than not, Matthew fucking Murdock would appear by his side as if he had popped out of the ground. Sometimes, when Frank was sitting by himself next to the carousel, a smear of black brooding in the bench. Sometimes earlier, when he's walking home from work and Matt shows up like a ninja and brings them both a cup of coffee. 

No sugar, bit of cream for Castle. He wonders how the hell he knows how he likes his coffee. Must be his freaky senses.

Then, he starts finding the marine during the day. Lunch time or during early afternoon, he'll bring coffee - Red's being sugary with cream, a tooth-rotting experience, even from afar - and he'll sit by his side. He won't talk or ask anything off of him, initiate touch only sometimes, when he’s finds permission in Frank’s behavior or body language.

He usually just sits by his side with the coffee and talks about nonsense. Sometimes, he brings food too. Frank tells himself he eats it only so Red will eat it too and stop looking so scarily thin. 

He wonders if he's as lonely as frank is, and that's why he ends up finding him everyday.

Then there's the day Frank decides to bring the coffee. It’s a spur of the moment thing. He justifies himself that Red is a broke lawyer that lives off being paid with live chickens by nice  _ abuelas  _ and cake. 

He told him once they got 5 chickens. Actual, living chickens. They drove four hours to the closest sanctuary to drop them off. Karen, apparently, actually cried. She had named one Bernadette.

"Oh" Matt, for some reason, had looked impressed and delighted in a quiet way. He sat by his side, taking the coffee and sniffing it with a gentle smile and they ended up talking about dogs, for whatever motive, and Frank enjoyed it.

Enjoyed being by his side, knees pressed together. Talking about things that didn't hurt. 

There's one day, weeks after they started meeting like this, that Murdock comes, not smiling quietly as he usually does, but with a small sigh and heavy shoulders. He looks weary and fatigued, and Frank feels the familiar, dreadful feeling of worry churning up in his guts. That's what he'd been afraid and angry about, all this time.

Caring. Letting someone close enough to hold his heart in their hands.

“What's up with you?” he grunts out, aiming for nonchalant but ending up studying Murdock's figure anyway. He looks pale too, now that he looks closer. Clammy, almost ashen.

“Hum..” he doesn't answer for a while beside that, and side by side, Frank can watch his profile and, therefore, his foggy hazel eyes. They stare sightlessly ahead, like little puddles of honey. "Can't sleep, happen sometimes" Frank's hums in response, eyes straying away only to come back curiously to Red, squinting at his form, studying him. 

It prompts him to keep talking.

“Before it was just.. all the sounds. I'd go to bed and hear the neighbor's breathing. The electric wires buzzing all around the building. A cat meowing, a couple fighting two streets away... it was just... couldn't sleep. Had to go out sometimes, heard someone asking for help...” Frank hates that Red gives him more and more things to respect him for every time they meet. 

He just kinda keeps waiting now for those tiny things that make him... so fucking different from what he could ever hope for.

“But then, after.. after Midland. I get these nightmares. Wake up thinking I'm still trapped... then I can't move, can't think, just stay really still, so... so I won't disturb the rubble and it will crush me. I remember just, hoping it would be quick, that I didn't die hearing my lungs collapse, choking and.. I dunno" he's slurring like that day, two bullet wounds to his torso, one to the head, tired and still trying to make Frank laugh

It's clear he's exhausted.

Frank cant offer platitudes, can't offer him lies. Doesn't know how to help otherwise, so he just presses the side of his body against his, and Matt sags against the pressure. Melts like a warm puddle of satisfaction and relief. Like Frank was the  _ source  _ of that. It makes something warm spread in his chest, like a quiet, encompassing wild fire.

“Just tired” He whispers. Frank wonders if he's talking literally or not. 

He sees him close his eyes. 

It’s probably both.

“Com'on” Frank helps him get up, and for some reason, maybe the fatigue and sleep deprivation, he doesn't complain, just lets himself be manhandled out of the bench.

Frank takes him home, then. He walks him to his apartment and accompanies him up the stairs. Acting like support, comfort, anything Red asked of him.

"Thank you" Red mutters when they reach his door on the top floor, turning towards Frank. He’s still ashen, clearly sleep deprived, but now that he looks twice, Red at least looks a bit less skinny. His cheeks not as sunken as they had been a month ago.

"No big deal, we were close anyway"

"For listening, I mean... and not mocking me" Castle holds his breath then, inhaling sharply. It shouldn't surprise him that Red thought he'd mock him for something of the like, he had been a dick in more ways then one lately. He sighs.

"Well. No one deserves to be alone when they're hurting, isn't that what you said altar boy?" Matt smiles at him, it's kinda sweet and soft.

"Yeah.. thank you anyway"

"Get some sleep.." he sighs, giving back Red's phone he had slipped out of his pocket, during the walk. It’s a telling of how tired he’d been that he didn’t notice that. He looks confused then, tilting his head. "If you.. need anything. If you wake up after a nightmare.. anyway. Just call"

Matt beams at him then, albeit tiredly. 

"Night Frank" 

"Night Matt"

It's the first time he calls him by his name. It leaves a tingling in his tongue and his stomach. 

He walks home and he feels good.

The day he talks, he doesn't even know why. 

He had been having more good days than bad ones. So when he wakes up to the sound of their screaming, he feels like he has no strength left in his bones to hold him up.

"Keep hearing the song" he whispers, when Red is silent by his side, both of them sitting in a bench at the park. "The carousel" he explains, sighing a bit when he looks down to his half drunk coffee. And then to Matt's and his hands, warming themselves up in the hot beverage. Winter is coming and Red's already wearing fingerless wool gloves.

"The days my head aches, the bullet.. I can hear it again. Like echo you know?" Matt slowly nods, his silence should be off putting, but Matt has this presence about him that makes him spill his heart out. "The day I came back, the morning they died, I told Maria I was done. Wasn’t going back anymore.. I was ready. It was time, you know? Maria and the kids, they knew, we all did." He breathes wetly and Matt's hand find his, holding his strongly, ignoring the hot coffee as he puts it down by his side.

"T'was like-.. like this weight got off my shoulders you know? It was time, I wanted to be with them, I wanted to watch them grow" 

He sees a small splash of tear, it's not his. His eyes are teary as they stray towards Red’s face, a tear slowly making it’s way down his face. Those glasses irritate him, always hiding his eyes. That window where Frank can peer inside, see him, know him. 

He takes them off slowly, leaving Matt plenty of time to stop him if he wants and watches Red's face. He's beautiful, even with his teary eyes and hurt expression. He feels so deeply for something he didn't even experience. Frank thinks it's something most people don't know how to do, understand other people's pain and feel it so rawly. 

Matty does.

He holds his hand tight and lets his forehead fall against Matt's. Closing his eyes and enjoying their shared warmth. 

"I'm still learning you know?" Matt whispers. "I can't let go of the people I lost, but I know I can't forget life in exchange of grasping to the past. So I'm learning... to stay with the living. To feel them, you know? And maybe, someday, feel like I am part of them. 

“I still don't, and most often then not, I spiral. But there are days, like today, that I feel my feet on the ground and.. and I know it'll be okay. Will hurt, will take time, but I'll be okay." 

Frank lets his tears fall then and nods, closing his eyes forcefully. Still close to him. He holds tightly to Matt, finds in him a lighthouse in a raging sea. A ray of hope in a land of waste and decay. A possibility of hope - of grow, after all death and destruction he saw and caused.

Not only for what Matt's offering, but because now he's willing to give and to take too. He's willing to try.

He holds onto his warmth and stares into his eyes, and feels his feet on the ground, his knees touching Matty's. He'll be okay.


End file.
